Child Support Queens Praise Michigan's Mike Cox

MensNewsDaily.com ^ | February 24, 2004 | MND NEWSWIRE

[RogerFGay]

Lottery-Like Awards Crush Fathers, Make Mothers Rich
Child Support Queens Praise Michigan's Mike Cox

February 24, 2004

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By MND NEWSWIRE

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The largest child-support organization in the nation announced today that Michigan Attorney General Mike will receive its Golden Hearts Award.

The Association for Children for Enforcement of Support (ACES), a non- profit, child-advocacy organization with 50,000 members and 400 chapters in 48 states, recognized Cox for focusing attention on the $7 billion owed to Michigan children in unpaid child support. Past award recipients include New York Gov. George Pataki and U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine.

"This award is a tribute to all the parents, government officials, community leaders, and ordinary citizens who have helped me bring attention to the epidemic of unpaid child support," stated Cox. "I am honored and privileged that the people of Michigan allow my office to attempt to help the 650,000 children get the child support they deserve."

ACES recognizes only four recipients annually for their leadership in helping children recover the amount owed to them in child support. ACES will make a formal presentation of the award to Cox in the next few weeks. "I worked with local bureaucracy for 16 years for support for my son and got very little, maybe $8,000," said a mother(1) who recently got resolution of her case. "Thanks to Mike Cox, in a month, I had a check for $120,000 and another for $225,000. It was like a fairytale."

Geraldine Jensen of ACES, who is well known for her obsessive efforts to misinform the public about child support issues (see: Associated Press: A Case Study in Dishonesty) is presenting an award to Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox (see: Michigan AG Linked to Organized Crime and Child Support Propaganda Haunts Michigan Papers). According to Jensen, Cox was chosen because of his establishment of a first-of-its kind program that prosecutes child support as a felony. Since establishing the child support division, Cox's office has collected more than $2 million, issued a total of 234 warrants and made 132 arrests. Cox focuses on those who can pay, but refuse to pay -- including heavyweight boxer James Toney, former NFL Detroit Lion and pro-bowler Bennie Blades, and several other Michigan professionals.

"Attorney General Mike Cox is a leader in the nation among attorneys general, tracking down law breakers who have abandoned their children," Jensen said. "He's taking some of the first real action across the country, treating non-support as a serious crime, a crime that causes poverty amongst children. It is particularly helpful to families. We think it's a really wonderful approach."

ACES also cited Cox's Paykids initiative as reason for honoring the attorney general.

Paykids is a public awareness program Cox established last October that features an interactive website to assist parents in recovering child support owed to their children; 39 billboards placed across Michigan to raise awareness on this issue; and a toll-free number for parents to communicate directly with the Attorney General's Child Support Division.

(1) Name withheld to protect identity of the child - and mother.

[TheSpottedOwl]

"Thanks to Mike Cox, in a month, I had a check for $120,000 and another for $225,000. It was like a fairytale."

The money appeared, "just like that"? Is this statement designed to lead us to believe that the father just happened to be sitting on that kind of cash?

This reminds me of those cheeseball Larry H. Parker tv commercials. Parker is a personal injury lawyer based in Los Angeles.

[FreedomAvatar]

. the question is not now much the mom makes, but how much YOU make....because if the kids have known a certain lifestyle, between your two incomes, then shouldn't they continue with that?

Does the state mandate how much a married couple spends on their children? Why not?

Why does a non-custodial parent lose their right to equal protection under the law?

[Orangedog]

that actually happens many times, where the good daddy is so good that he just kills mommy and the kids, just so his little ego can feel like a big man...

Seems to be just as many, if not more cases of mommy either drowning the kids or running over dad with the car. The big difference is when mommy kills daddy, she usually ends up with custody.

[FreedomAvatar]

61% of all child abuse is committed by biological mothers
25% of all child abuse is committed by natural fathers
Statistical Source: Current DHHS report on nationwide Child Abuse


79.6% of custodial mothers receive a support award
29.9% of custodial fathers receive a support award

46.9% of non-custodial mothers totally default on support
26.9% of non-custodial fathers totally default on support

20.0% of non-custodial mothers pay support at some level
61.0% of non-custodial fathers pay support at some level

66.2% of single custodial mothers work less than full-time
10.2% of single custodial fathers work less than full-time

7.0% of single custodial mothers work more than 44 hours weekly
24.5% of single custodial fathers work more than 44 hours weekly

46.2% of single custodial mothers receive public assistance
20.8% of single custodial fathers receive public assistance
Statistical Source: Technical Analysis Paper No. 42 - U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services - Office of Income Security Policy

[Orangedog]

"I worked with local bureaucracy for 16 years for support for my son and got very little, maybe $8,000," said a mother(1) who recently got resolution of her case. "Thanks to Mike Cox, in a month, I had a check for $120,000 and another for $225,000. It was like a fairytale."

But wait, I thought that this money belongs to "the children." Certainly after playing with the courts for 16 years, her son is an adult now. Shouldn't that money go to him? Oh, that's right...the money NEVER did belong to him. He is not entitled to have any of it spent on him. So mom gets the fairytale and junior gets squat. Just the way the industry intended.

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

Cox earns kudos for strong efforts to crack down on deadbeat parents


By Laura Berman / The Detroit News



Mike Cox, the nuts and bolts state attorney general, is throwing deadbeat parents in the slammer and collecting back child support.

Over the last year, his office has locked up wealthy businessmen, a Grosse Pointe neurologist, a middleweight boxer — subjecting high-income child support evaders to maximum humiliation and pressure.

Cox, who was at one time a single father with custody of his eldest daughter, promised to do this simple, straightforward collections work when he ran for state attorney general in the fall of 2000.

In terms of professional prestige, collections do not top the legal ladder. Collecting unpaid bills is not the kind of work that brilliant young people go to Harvard or the University of Michigan Law School to learn how to do. It’s the legal equivalent of playing repo man.

And yet, unglamorous and unintellectual as it may be, Cox’s child support collections program is effective, and in its way, both groundbreaking and creative. It’s making a substantive difference in the lives of people, some of them women who were in desperate situations they deemed virtually hopeless. (About 90 percent of the prosecutions so far have been against men.)

These women tell the kind of stories reporters long have heard about the ineptitude and inaction of the Friend of the Court. “Yeah, lady, the system is broken,” was about all one might say in response.

So there is a certain visceral appeal to listening to Joan Arguine, a 62-year-old legal secretary who now lives in Toledo, Ohio, describe how she spent 24 years trying to get her ex-husband’s child support order enforced.

When it was first handed down, she was a 38-year-old woman with a 4-year-old son living in Monroe County. It was 1979 when a judge ordered her ex-husband, Leo Arguine, a sheet metal-worker with his own business, to pay $50 a week.

He didn’t pay. But Joan — who quit a 15-year job as an EKG technician only weeks before her husband split for California — didn’t relent. She pursued her ex, and dogged the officials at the Monroe County Friend of the Court’s office for more than two decades.

After Cox vowed to prosecute child support evaders as felons, she called. And last July, the state Attorney General’s Office tracked down her ex-husband in Guadalupe County, Texas, and arrested him. He posted bond 10 days later and he left the state. In November, he was arrested again — this time in Florida. Confronted with evidence of property and a recent Texas property sale, he agreed to a $55,000 settlement of the $68,000 he owed.

“This is a godsend to me,” Joan says. (A call to Leo Arguine’s attorney in Florida was not returned.)

Cox has created a division that includes seven lawyers and 14 investigators to enforce child support cases. But because the federal government reimburses the state two-thirds of the cost of collection, he insists the effort is cost-effective.

Last week, the Association for Children for Enforcement of Support — a child-advocacy group — announced it would honor Cox for treating nonsupport cases as serious crimes. That’s not surprising: Cox has used energy and creativity to re-invent Michigan’s child support enforcement system. If that gets him glowing headlines, he deserves them.

[GOPJ]

Orlando's a newbie - maybe a troll. Conservatives back responsibility -- and that includes insisting parents support their own children.

[GOPJ]

Orlando's a newbie - maybe a troll. Conservatives back responsibility -- and that includes insisting parents support their own children.

[EEDUDE]

"the question is not now much the mom makes, but how much YOU make....because if the kids have known a certain lifestyle, between your two incomes, then shouldn't they continue with that?"

First of all, I don't make much more that she does.

Second, it is impossible to maintain the same "lifestyle" when there are now two homes that must be supported on essentially the same income.

And oh, by the way, isn't it fair for my kids to be able to enjoy that same "lifestyle" when they come to "visit" me?

Well, they can't.

Third, I don't blame women for this situation, (except radical feminists who hate men and have lobbied for this kind of treatment for men). It is BIG business and very PC to come after "bad" Dad's.

Fourth, I (taking you at your word) agree with the sanctity of marriage. But the current state of child support in this country does NOT encourage it.

For many women, divorce looks like a guaranteed lottery win. In my state, it is axiomatic that the woman gets custody of the children, unless she can be proven to be unfit. In addition, VERY generous child support is guaranteed.

Seriously, set aside your preconcieved notions about "Deadbeat Dad's", and do some honest research on the current state of affairs.

I think you will be shocked at what you find.

[paulsy]

I think... you're being sarcastic. But if you're not...
"Stangely enough they never understand that children of divorce look to the Child support payments as a sign that the absent parent still loves them."

huh?

SOME men feel that Divorce means that all resposibility for the children ends.

I'd say very few (as a %) divorced fathers feel this way.

[GOPJ]

You're right. He deserves every glowing headline printed:

After Cox vowed to prosecute child support evaders as felons, she called. And last July, the state Attorney General’s Office tracked down her ex-husband in Guadalupe County, Texas, and arrested him. He posted bond 10 days later and he left the state. In November, he was arrested again — this time in Florida. Confronted with evidence of property and a recent Texas property sale, he agreed to a $55,000 settlement of the $68,000 he owed.

“This is a godsend to me,” Joan says. (A call to Leo Arguine’s attorney in Florida was not returned.)

Cox has created a division that includes seven lawyers and 14 investigators to enforce child support cases. But because the federal government reimburses the state two-thirds of the cost of collection, he insists the effort is cost-effective.

Last week, the Association for Children for Enforcement of Support — a child-advocacy group — announced it would honor Cox for treating nonsupport cases as serious crimes. That’s not surprising: Cox has used energy and creativity to re-invent Michigan’s child support enforcement system. If that gets him glowing headlines, he deserves them.

[Leatherneck_MT]

You have no idea what you are talking about.

Most men do not feel that their responsibility ends and until you have had to walk in their shoes, maybe you shouldn't pass judgement.

Child Support Laws are nothing more than the governments way of getting their hands and influence further into the American Family and has had no impact whatsoever on whether the children get the financial assistance that they need. It has however enriched the government coffers and created another new beuracracy that is feeding on the blood of the American People.

[paulsy]

Working full time, raising children ALONE, and trying to help them grow into productive adults is sure LAZY.

Then give ME the child. I'm a hypothetical, re-married father paying support to a single mother who has serial boyfriends, drinks too much, has a filthy house and has no aspirations of raising my child in a wholesome environment.

But the LAZY Father can't even share a little of his income to help.

This hypothetical LAZY Father would be glad to have the child. This LAZY Father is happy to pay support for the child but doesn't feel $1500 a month is what it really costs to raise a child; and the courts seem to take every last dollar of disposable income so the LAZY Father has nothing left to save for his retirement, or his other children's college education.

On the other hand, the mother has the burden (and privelege) or raising the child alone; the burden of paying for daycare; being a single mother is one of the most difficult human undertakings.

Maybe these are some one of the reasons God hates divorce.

The issue is so contentious, with liberal courts typically so punitive, PUNITIVE (not supportive) in their assessments of custody and support. It creates bitter and destructive animosity between parents, with the children getting caught up in it all.

[FreedomAvatar]

After Cox vowed to prosecute child support evaders as felons...

66.0% of all support not paid by non-custodial fathers is due to inability to pay Statistical Source: 1988 Census "Child Support and Alimony: 1989 Series P-60, No. 173 p. 6-7. and U.S. General Accounting Office Report" GAO/HRD-92-39FS January, 1992

Felons? Yeah, I guess so. Nothing like being a layoff away from going to jail.

[Quester]

When you pay $1600.00 child support per month for 2 children to a Mother who is already making $45,000 per year, and the kids have to ask Dad for decent clothes, ...

How much is dad making ?

How much do you think dad should pay so that his are children well taken care of ?

[EEDUDE]

"This hypothetical LAZY Father would be glad to have the child. This LAZY Father is happy to pay support for the child but doesn't feel $1500 a month is what it really costs to raise a child; and the courts seem to take every last dollar of disposable income so the LAZY Father has nothing left to save for his retirement, or his other children's college education."

I would give ANYTHING to have joint custody of my children.
I spend every available moment with them, and treasure it

My divorce attorney (a female) told me from the beginning:

Don't even think about it, you could pay me $500,000 to argue your case for joint custody of your children, but you will lose.

Shocked, I asked her why.

Her response was, "Honestly, it's because you are a man"

And I sat and cried in her office.

[jimt]

how telling of you that you suggest shooting someone....

How telling of you to take that phrase out of context and not include the rest of the sentence, pretending that shooting someone was what I suggested.

"The tempting thing is to shoot the mother, but that, or bad mouthing her, won't do you or the kids any good."

That's what I actually said.

Perhaps you support the rape of fathers by the mothers' surrogate, the "family" courts ?

[EEDUDE]

"How much is dad making ?

How much do you think dad should pay so that his are children well taken care of ?"

To the first, and very personal, question: $53,000.00/yr.

To the second: As MUCH as it takes, you presumptuous jerk.

It's NOT about the MONEY.

It's about the fact that the KID's don't recieve the benefits of it.

If you'll bother to read some of my earlier posts, it's all about no ACCOUNTABILITY for the money that is paid.

[Quester]

Fourth, I (taking you at your word) agree with the sanctity of marriage. But the current state of child support in this country does NOT encourage it.

How does the child support issue affect the viability of marriage ?

[marty60]

Obviously you haven't read my post. I know the system very well. Raised three children. 1) 5 at time of divorce. 2)3.5 and my Son was 6 wks. He felt spending time with his girlfriend was more important than me and his children.